Fine Meshwork: Philip Roth, Edna O'Brien, and Jewish-Irish Literature
(Part of the Irish Studies, Syracuse University Press Series)
No Customer Reviews
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
In a 1984 interview with longtime friend Edna O'Brien, Philip Roth describes her writing as "a piece of fine meshwork, a net of perfectly observed sensuous details that enables you to contain all the longing and pain and remorse that surge through the fiction." The phrase "fine meshwork" can apply not only to O'Brien's writing but also to the connective threads that bind her work to others', including, most illuminatingly, Roth's.
Since the publication of their first controversial novels in the 1950s and 1960s, Roth and O'Brien have always argued against the isolation of mind from body, autobiography from fiction, life from art, and self from nation. In Fine Meshwork, Dan O'Brien investigates the shared concerns of these two authors, now regarded as literary icons in their home countries. He traces their fifty-year literary friendship and the striking parallels in their books and reception, bringing together what, at first glance, seem to be quite disparate milieus: the largely feminist and Irish scholarship on O'Brien with Jewish and American perspectives on Roth. In doing so, and in considering them in a transnational context, he argues that the intertwined nature of their writing symbolizes the far-ranging symbiosis between Irish literature and its American--particularly Jewish American--counterpart.Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0815636393
ISBN13:9780815636397
Release Date:December 2019
Publisher:Syracuse University Press
Length:312 Pages
Weight:1.00 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 7.1" x 8.9"
Customer Reviews
0 rating
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
